Use a Nokia N95 for Awesome Motion Capturing Movies

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Use a Nokia N95 for Awesome Motion Capturing Movies

You're an aspiring Peter Jackson. You scoured Craigslist to find the next great Andy Serkis, and the actor is ready to mime his way into your movie through the magic of motion capture. When it's time to finally shoot the scene, you take a deep breath, mainly because there are no pro movie cameras around. Instead, you pick up your... phone. Action?

It's possible. Using the accelerometer technology available in many of today's multimedia phones, like Nokia's N95, software designer Tea Vui Huang has created a mobile application that can capture 2- and 3-axis motions for 3D animations in movies and games.

So how does he do it? By using the accelerometer to generate motion data when a phone points, rolls & pitches in space. Huanh's MoCap application takes this data and converts it into axial animation data and positional data.

In addition, you can adjust the frame rate on the phone itself, as well as choose the type of MoCap file you'll use for full-blown editing later, on your PC. Standard type of FX motion capture file managers like Vicon C3D, Autodesk FBX, and Acclaim AMC ASF can be used with your cell videos.

Interestingly, all of these formats have different ways that they can take the data and create 3D animations, so you'll have to follow his directions about importing commands, such as the rotation of an arm, interpolation of an image, or anything else. But it's good to know that you won't be stuck using only one type of animation software on the back end.

According to Vui Huang, motion capturing through the phone is also possible without an accelerometer – just use a combination of keys to simulate the azimuth, roll, and pitch of an image.

So while the memory constraints of a phone will limit the length and quality of a full-blown, high-res movie, the fact that it can be used for something this useful says something about where this tech is going. If you're the experimental type, you might even take it all the way to the bedroom, if that's what you're into.